


Resolution

by bayloriffic



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 06:17:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2762741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bayloriffic/pseuds/bayloriffic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I love you,” Felicity tells him, just like that.</p><p>
  <em>Takes place after "The Climb" (3.09).</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resolution

Oliver doesn’t come back from his fight with Ra’s al Ghul. 

For the first few days, Felicity’s able to convince herself that it’s fine, that he’s fine, that everything happened just like it should. 

That Oliver fought, and Oliver survived, and Oliver won. That Ra’s al Ghul is dead, and Oliver is alive. 

But what happens instead is that Oliver doesn’t come back. Not after two days, or three or four or five. Not after a week. Not after a month. Not after a year. He’s just...gone. 

Felicity never stops waiting, never stops expecting him to walk down the basement stairs, never stops wishing she would have told him that she loved him before he walked away. But she just...she thought it would sound too much like a goodbye, like it would sound like giving up, like if she didn’t say it, he would have to come back. Because it doesn’t make sense that she could just _not_ tell Oliver Queen she loved him.

But Oliver doesn't come back, and so Felicity waits. And every second of every day that Oliver's away, there's a deep, empty feeling inside of her, one that Felicity knows will never go away, one that reminds her of everything she's lost.

*

With the Arrow gone, Starling City is in need of a savior, and in Oliver's absence, there's no small selection of candidates.

They go to Felicity for help, all of them turning to for her assistance, her expertise. She provides it, of course, guiding all of the Starling City Vigilantes on their quest to make the world a better, safer place. 

Ray’s ATOM suit is a scientific marvel, and the technology he creates opens up all kinds of new possibilities to fight crime in Starling, to save the city. His transition from CEO to masked hero hits a few bumps, of course, but not nearly as many as it would have if Felicity wasn’t there to guide him through it.

Laurel goes full-on Black Canary before too long, probably much sooner than she should, but no one can talk her out of it. Besides, what she lacks in skill she mostly makes up for in passion, and Felicity’s there to patch her wounds and brainstorm strategies for next time. Felicity's learning that with Laurel, there is always a next time.

Roy takes his promise to protect Thea seriously, and he’s out there every night, suited up and fighting the fight that Oliver left behind. He's still a little unsure, a little hesitant without Oliver there to guide him, but Felicity steps up her tech game, designing more inventive arrows for him to use, more ways for him to get the upper hand on the criminals they're fighting.

Diggle ends up as a kind of grudging mentor to all three of Starling City’s newest vigilantes. He still refuses to pick a superhero name or wear a costume, but he’ll wear a ski mask during the riskier missions if Felicity nags him enough.

The truth is, it feels good to be helping, good to stay involved, good to keep trying to save Starling City from itself.

They keep the Foundry for their base of operations, and Felicity tries to ignore the stab of guilt that hits her when she leads Ray down the basement stairs for the first time. 

Oliver’s hood still sits on the mannequin in the center of the room, empty and unused, and if there’s a part of her heart that seems like it’s gone, that’s hollow and dark, well. That’s just how things are.

*

Felicity cuts her hair in March, hacks it all off in her bathroom with a pair of scissors she stole from her desk at Palmer Industries.

It’s choppy and ragged and shorter than she’s ever had it, the ends barely brushing her shoulders.

She stares at herself for a long time in the mirror after she does it. It’s way too short to pull back into a ponytail, huge chunks of it falling around her face when she tries.

She likes it, she finally decides, running her fingers from the roots down to the ends, marveling a little at how it just _stops_ , her fingers hitting empty air before they even reach her shoulders.

It looks a little rough and incomplete, but maybe that’s okay. 

She thinks that it probably suits her these days.

*

The summer is as quiet as it always is, and by the time autumn rolls around, they've managed to form a fairly tight-knit team. They're not quite the well-oiled machine that Team Arrow was, but Ray gets a handle on the suit and Laurel keeps training and pretty soon, they're all working together pretty well. 

They don't talk about Oliver, don't mention the green hood that still sits in the glass case in the corner, but they're all carrying on his mission, all of them trying to save Starling City from itself, which Felicity thinks is exactly what Oliver would want. If he was around to want anything any more.

*

It’s been a long night. December in Starling City is cold and damp and dark, and Felicity wants nothing more than to go back to her apartment and pour herself a glass of wine and sleep for the next two days.

Vertigo’s back in play, and even though they had all hands on deck for the deal that was supposed to go down at the docks tonight, it was still a little dicey. Black Canary ended up with two broken ribs, The Atom has a grade two concussion, and Arsenal’s nursing a nasty gash on his right thigh. The only reason Diggle escaped unscathed is that he was driving the getaway van. 

But, despite all of that, they managed to come out on top. The bad guys have been handed over to SCPD, and Starling City is safe from at least one of the many things that go bump in the night.

Which means that Felicity is free to go home and drink her wine and sleep for, if not two days, at least for a couple of hours.

She’s exhausted, which is why it takes her as long as it does to realize that something’s off, that her apartment isn’t exactly how she left it this morning. 

It’s nothing more than a feeling, a sinking sensation in her stomach and the hair standing up on the back of her neck, but not two seconds after Felicity locks her front door behind her, she realizes she’s not alone. 

A million different possibilities race through her mind in the split second between when she realizes she’s got company and when she flips on the living room light, but exactly zero of them feature Oliver Queen sitting on her couch.

“Hi,” she breathes. Her heart feels like it’s not beating right; Felicity thinks it may have actually stopped in her chest. She’d be worried she was having a heart attack, but there’s no pain, only this aching, swooping sense of joy and relief.

“You need a better security system,” he tells her seriously, and Felicity laughs, a giddy, hysterical sound that sounds much too loud in the her tiny apartment. He looks different, his face thinner, his hair longer, as long as hers now, the ends touching his shoulders.

“You’re here,” Felicity says. “I mean, obviously you’re here. Where else would you be? Not anywhere. Not in Nanda Parabat, not in Nepal – which is where you had the private jet fly you, by the way, before you vanished off the face of the earth – not in Corto Maltese or Timor Leste or any of the other places I looked for you. Which I did, by the way. I looked for you _everywhere._ Because I couldn’t believe that you were…” she shakes her head, and swallows hard, not able to bring herself to say the words, not even when he’s right here, real and alive. She runs her fingers through her too-short hair. She trims it every few weeks over her bathroom sink, cutting off the dead ends. “Sometimes I thought maybe you decided not to come back, that you were done, that–”

“Felicity,” he cuts her off, and his tone is the same one he used so long ago, back when she asked him to say that he never loved her. “I will never be done, not with you, not ever. I will always, _always_ come back. No matter–-” he stops and takes a deep breath. When he lets it out, it puffs against the ends of his hair, making it flutter against his cheeks. “No matter what happens. For you, I will always come back.”

Felicity doesn't say anything to that, for once her mind going completely blank. When he stands up, he lists slightly to one side, holding himself a little awkwardly, and Felicity means to ask him about it, to make sure he's okay, but then he's suddenly right in front of her, close enough that she can feel the heat of his body, an electric, familiar sensation that makes her breath catch in her throat.

“I love you,” Felicity tells him, just like that. There’s no pretense or hesitation, which maybe shouldn’t be a surprise considering that she’s loved him for as long as she can remember, that she loves him like she breathes, involuntary and constant. “I missed you, and I love you, and I just...I really, really missed you.”

“I really, really missed you, too,” he tells her, and even if it doesn’t look like he’s smiling, she knows that he is. She’s always been able to see the parts of him that seem like they’re not there.

He takes another step closer to her, and Felicity feels a little like this might just be a dream, like none of this is really real. When he kisses her, it’s like she’s being awoken from some deep, terrible sleep, her heart suddenly skipping in her chest.

His mouth is warm and familiar, and it’s like everything finally makes sense, like she can breathe, and her heart can finally beat, and a thousand other cliches that she can’t think of right now. He cups his hands against her face, and his too-long hair brushes up against her cheeks, and she just loves him _so much_.

Oliver runs his tongue along her lower lip and cups the back of her head in his hand, calloused fingers stroking against the sensitive skin on her neck, and Felicity only breaks away because she's feeling a little dizzy, the oxygen not quite getting to her brain. Oliver's hands are cupping her cheeks and he leans his forehead against hers, holding them together so that she can feel the warmth of his breath against her lips. His breath keeps hitching, stuttering and unsure, like he's gasping for air.

“I love you,” she says again. “And I don’t know why it took me so long, why I didn’t say it before, but I just. I love you, Oliver. I do. And I missed you, and I can’t believe you’re actually here, in my apartment, real and solid and alive, and I should have told you before, but I was afraid you’d think it was goodbye, that it was our ending, and I didn’t want an ending, I wanted a beginning, and I just…”

“Felicity,” Oliver says, pulling back just enough to look at her. His thumbs are ghosting across her cheeks and his eyes are even bluer than she remembered, and she can feel the flutter of his heartbeat through his chest, fast and alive.

"Oliver," she says back, and she kisses him again, and she finally, _finally_ feels like she's whole.


End file.
